This book introduces readers to the field of international environmental politics (IEP) through authoritative and up-to-date surveys of its major approaches and debates. The book is divided into three parts. The chapters in Part I provide comprehensive and pluralistic reviews stressing the diversity of the field's origins, theories, and methods. The remaining chapters are organized around key research areas and allow readers to become broadly familiar with the theoretical and substantive debates that characterizethe field. In Part II, the authors review the theoretical and empirical trajectories of a given research area – international political economy, gender, knowledge, governance, transnational actors, and security – and present a short original case study to illuminatethe main debates that emerge. Part III reflects on four distinct frameworks for evaluating IEP: effectiveness, transparency, sustainability, and justice. Collectively, the authors demonstrate how the field of IEP has evolved and identify key questions, topics, and approaches to guide future research.

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Michele M. Betsill is Professor of Political Science as well as founder and co-leader of the Environmental Governance Working Group at Colorado State University, USA. She is the author with nine members of the Leverhulme Network on Transnational Climate Governance of Transnational Climate Change Governance (2014) and co-editor (with Elisabeth Corell) of NGO Diplomacy: The Influence of Non-governmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations (2008). She is co-editor of Global Environmental Change and a member of the scientific steering committee of theEarth System Governance network.

Kathryn Hochstetler is CIGI Chair of Governance of the Americas in the Balsillie School of International Affairs and Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, Canada. She has published widely on environmental politics and movements in Brazil and other Latin American countries as well as on international environmental negotiations. Her most recent book (with Margaret E. Keck) is the prize-winning Greening Brazil: Environmental Activism in State and Society (2007).

Dimitris Stevis is Professor of Political Science at Colorado State University, USA. His research revolves around the social governance of the world political economy in the areas of labor and the environment. His publications include co-editor (with Valerie Assetto) The International Political Economy of the Environment: Critical Perspectives (2001) and (with Terry Boswell) Globalization and Labor: Democratizing Global Governance (2008).

1. General Introduction; Michele Betsill, Kathryn Hochstetler and Dimitris Stevis PART I: THE CONTEXT OF INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 2. The Trajectory of International Environmental Politics; Dimitris Stevis 3. Theoretical Perspectives on International Environmental Politics; Matthew Paterson 4. Methods in International Environmental Politics; Kathryn Hochstetler and Melinda Laituri PART II: MAJOR RESEARCH AREAS 5. International Political Economy and the Environment; Jennifer Clapp 6. Gender and International Environmental Politics; Nicole Detraz 7. Knowledge and the Environment; Eva Lӧvbrand